


The V(ulcan) Word

by Exxact



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek (Comics), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Genderbending, Courting Rituals, Cultural Differences, F/F, Femslash, First Dates, M/M, Multi, Rated M for sexual references, Star Trek Femslash, Star Trek: Parallel Lives - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exxact/pseuds/Exxact
Summary: “Doctor McCoy?”Lea gives a smile that hides the stains on her bottom teeth.  “Yes, ma’am.  And you’d better be Ms. Spock.  Or else.”Spock’s eyes narrow.  “Or else what?”“Or else I’d be real, real disappointed.”“The sentiment is mutual,” Spock replies, and Lea swears that there’s a touch more green to her cheeks.A sequel to "FleetMeet.com".
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Lea McCoy/Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, fem!Leonard McCoy/fem!Spock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	The V(ulcan) Word

Lea regrets not disabling the pop-up text notifications on her PADD the second she closes the bathroom door behind her.

“So, red or gold? Your ass is bigger than mine, but it’s a thong, so it kind of doesn’t matter.”

Lea breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying not to crack the godawful “Choose Happy” mug that Chris gave her for her birthday in her hands. “Lunch, Jamie. It’s just lunch—a nice early lunch with a nice lady on the half-day of classes before reading days.”

“That is, as you would say, ‘total horseshit’. She’s gonna plow you.”

“Jesus, kid! Do you ever listen to yourself? Life ain’t a porno. Besides, I have to give that damn guest lecture right after!”

“Well, yours isn’t. But it could be if you choose the red one!”

Lea pulls a face, shuddering before remembering the coffee in her hands. Luckily, it’s half-empty. _Story of my life._

_“C’mon,”_ Jamie whispers out of the side of her mouth, waving the red thong in her hand, _“choose me, Bonsey! I match the one Jamie’s got on right now!”_

“You really take the role of ‘annoying younger sister’ seriously, don’t you?” 

Jamie’s face becomes solemn, haunted in a way Bones still hasn’t managed to learn the story behind. “Absolutely.”

Lea sighs, setting the mug down, tugging Jamie into her arms while pointedly avoiding the thongs. 

“Also, why did you bring your coffee in here? That’s weird, Bones.”

“And double-fisting energy drinks outside the door while I was I trying to take a bath last night isn’t?”

“It’s Finals Week!”

Lea crosses her arms, staring Jamie down. “Not until classes end at one. Then I’ll let you treat your body like a rental car with only minor nagging.”

“Don’t try to change the subject! Pick a thong and then I’ll let you brush your teeth!”

“I’m already wearing the same standard-issue briefs I’d wear to church because nothing is going to happen. Now, get out!”

Jamie rolls her eyes, ignoring Lea’s exaggerated pointing. “Please. She’s gonna drag you back to her apartment for a nooner if she has any common sense.”

“Stop being nasty. She’s too blunt for my mama to have considered a lady, but you can tell she’s the Vulcan equivalent.” 

Jamie snorts. “With that haircut? She’s no saint. That’s a dominatrix if I’ve ever seen one!”

“You’re judging her by human standards, and she’s not human,” Lea snaps back, gesturing again towards the door.

Jamie grins, whacking her hip into Lea’s instead of taking the hint. “You sound like me! Now, last time—red or gold? Wait, I can see if Gaila has any—“

“No,” Lea interrupts, setting both hands on Jamie’s shoulders. “I don’t sound like you because I’m being sensible. And I’m not wearing anyone’s cheap lingerie except my own.”

“ _Sensible_ is one step away from _logical_. Spock’s gonna propose on the spot! Can I be the flower girl?”

“Out!”

+

An hour and some-odd minutes spent getting ready and then trying to find the cafe Spock chose later and Lea is grateful that she wore her dowdy uniform briefs because they and public decency are about the only things keeping her from hiking up her skant and spreading her legs for God and half of San Francisco to see.

The woman walking towards her is stupidly, offensively attractive. She’s every bit as haughty as her picture had suggested and Lea just _knows_ that dammit, Jamie was right about the dominatrix thing.

“Doctor McCoy?” 

Lea gives a smile that hides the stains on her bottom teeth. “Yes, ma’am. And you’d better be Ms. Spock. Or else.”

Spock’s eyes narrow. “Or else what?”

“Or else I’d be real, real disappointed.” 

“The sentiment is mutual,” Spock replies, and Lea swears that there’s a touch more green to her cheeks. _I’ve still got it!_

Lea wets her lips, trying not to glare at the imaginary Jamie smirking in her head. “And here I thought Vulcans didn’t know sentiment from a hole in the wall.”

Spock guides them to one of the many empty tables, her hand hovering over the small of Lea’s back. “As I have mentioned an average of 3.3 times daily through our personal messages this past week, you, like most Terrans, require a more thorough understanding of Vulcan behavior. I will provide it.”

God, but that condescension shouldn’t make her clit throb. It does. “Well, Instructor, I’d sure like that, but I’d also hate to make you work off the clock.”

Spock’s pupils dilate, and the front page of an article about superior Vulcan scent detection flashes before Lea’s eyes. She pulls up her menu up to cover her face, only letting it drop once she’s pressed the buttons next to the hibiscus tea and sparkling water and her ridiculous triumphant grin has settled into something charming.

“I had assumed that you already understood you could not burden me,” Spock assures her, eyes fixated on Lea’s mouth. 

_We’ll see about that_. “Huh. Then I already like you better than half of the med track cadets pussyfootin’ around me like I won’t write about them forgetting what a sacrum is if they kiss my ass! “ 

Spock’s hand smooths over their stacked menus. “It is a common occurrence when teaching. A survival technique to many, I have noticed.”

Lea heaves out a sigh, struck by the memory of a much younger woman who’d bent over backwards for her graduate advisor until she’d nearly broken. “I, well, I probably shouldn’t be so hard on ‘em. They’re decent enough kids, really. Just not when Michaels forgets to charge the tricorders and Lewison talks to the wall!”

A smile flickers against Spock’s lips. “It is a difficult habit for most humans to break after they have been aboard a ship.”

_Humans_. Spock's inflection itches Lea’s skin like a sweater’s tag, and if she was ever able to dodge an argument, it certainly wouldn’t be now. However, a waitress arrives practically the moment her eyebrows arch upward, Spock’s interest in the plate before her quelling the worst of her urges.

“Kahri-torrafeiaca with a side of tolik fruit,” Spock tells her, pointing to a half-breaded, leafy mass accompanied by something that looks vaguely like a diced-up pear. “There are few Terran restaurants that carry the authentic version without meat.”

“Might have to ask you to write that pronunciation out if it’s any good.”

“You are welcome to try some,” Spock replies, scooping some onto the saucer Lea’s tea had been resting upon. “I noticed that you did not order what would be considered a proper meal by human standards."

“Guest lecture for Anatomical Studies at noon,” Lea grunts as she tries a forkful, trying to put the faceless herd of whatever stressed, bored cadets Pike can scrounge up with free pizza out of her mind. “Foster’s on early maternity leave and I drew the short straw. I’ll hurl if I let anything join the bagel and coffee already in me.”

“I see.”

Lea whistles, swallowing with a grin. She can practically hear Spock’s judgement. “Well, it’s not my mama’s breading, but dammit if this doesn’t hit the spot. Carry-torrafec, you called it?”

“Kahri-torrafeiaca.”

“What’s got you so down, Ms. Spock?” Lea frowns once she’s had some of her water, unwilling to give her the upper hand. “ Pronouncin’ that twist your tongue up into your head?”

“Your regional dialect is more pronounced when you express passion for the topic being discussed.”

“Yougottaproblemwiththat?” Lea replies from behind her hand as she tries to swallow the second bite she’s taken to avoid looking at Spock. 

“Not in the slightest,” Spock replies, spearing something leafy with her fork. “Though we have briefly discussed my Interspecies Ethics course in our correspondence, I have also informed you twice now that I am the instructor for an advanced phonology course.”

Lea feels her face grow hot, taking another bite and swallowing to buy herself time. “So you’re studyin’ me, then? Likin’ what you’re hearin’?” she asks, a curl of annoyance in her voice. “Lotta people make fun of it, call it trashy.”

Spock tilts her head. “Though my opinion may be biased by my assessment of your character, I can assure you that I do not find your informal manner of speech ‘trashy’, as you say.”

“Thought Vulcans couldn’t be biased.”

Spock leans forward, her eyes catching Lea’s so intensely that she nearly drops her mug back onto the saucer. Lea’s preparing herself for a grade-A telling-off until she hears Spock’s reply. 

“One of my students is particularly interested in dialects. Nyota Uhura—I believe that she would call us friends.”

“Oh, bless her heart,“ Lea snorts, a strange relief washing over her. “Jamie’s been trying to get into her pants since she found out that Gaila and her roommate are both drop-dead gorgeous. Tell her that I commiserate with her and to send the bill for any dry-cleaning my way if Jamie decides her closet is free-range hunting grounds.”

“I shall pass that on,” Spock murmurs, her voice almost strained. She pauses before she continues. “I take it that you are quite attached to Cadet Kirk?”

Lea shrugs. “ _She_ attached herself to me. If the kid’s gonna fuck and fight her way through Starfleet, she needs at least one wet blanket around to tell her to knock it off. And no, anyone with ‘Captain’ in their title sure doesn’t count in my book. Besides,” she admits, focusing on a shuttle taking off into orbit, “I was missing Jo too much to disappoint another pair of baby blues.”

“I do not imagine that Cadet Kirk shares many traits in common with your toddler son. Starfleet is a vigorous and—“

“Wanna bet? Check your PADD. And don’t bother telling me she doesn’t have your ID.”

Spock’s eyebrow seems to lift of its own volition as she does so.

_SC937-0176CEC: If you hurt Bones, I swear to whoever you pray to that nobody’s going to be able to dig your head from out of your ass by the time I’m finished._

_SC937-0176CEC: It’s Jamie Kirk, by the way._

This time, Lea allow her triumph to show on her face, stained teeth and all. “Told you. She’s a brat most of the time, but she’s part of the Lea McCoy package. Take it or leave it.”

Spock’s lip quirks in a near-smile as she types a response.

_S 179-276 SP: Noted._

A short silence falls over them, the hope surging through Lea dissipating the moment Spock looks up from her half-finished lunch.

“You are more than simply fond of Cadet Kirk.”

Lea pulls a face, setting her cup down with more than a little force. “So what? She hasn’t got anybody out here but me, like I said. Poor kid’s got all the emotional intelligence of a river rock, but she makes it real hard to stay angry at her.”

“I disagree with your assessment of why you were emotionally drawn to her.”

Lea’s exasperation rises, sharp and eager. “You disagree with my assessment of my own feelings. Hell of a lotta nerve you’ve got!”

“It is not bravery, Doctor. It is simply my conclusion based upon the evidence you have provided that you are an uncommonly compassionate human.”

Lea doesn’t hear the compliment until she’s already spoken, until her stomach is roiling with humiliation. “Oh, so now you wanna school me on Vulcan and human society? On how I can’t love someone I’m not related to without wanting in their pants? Because if you think the teenagers you lecture at and the stuffed cuckoos who hired you are representative of all of us, you’re as much of a quack as that cadet last week proselytizin' outside the clinic about how snorting lavender oil will cure my depression!”

Ten minutes ago, Lea would’ve said that anyone who believed in eyes being the window to the soul needed to get their own checked. But right now, Spock’s are practically raw with grief, revealing something old and hurt without even a tear to blur them.

“My mother is human. I am not as unfamiliar with humans and their capacity for emotion as you seem to be determined to believe I am.”

Lea, in her infinite wisdom, whistles. “Wow. Never would’ve guessed. You sure, uh, seem real Vulcan to me.”

Spock’s voice is brittle. “An opinion shared by many humans and no Vulcans. I rejected their offer to study at the Vulcan Science Academy in order to enroll in Starfleet. I am the only one to do so as, presumably, their mothers were not noted in their files as ‘disadvantages’.”

Lea blinks, patting the handles of her bag as Spock’s breaths become shorter, nearly ragged. Should she leave? Get Spock to the clinic? She’s too much of a doctor to abandon anyone in the middle of a panic attack (or the Vulcan equivalent), but it seems like her presence might be causing Spock more distress than comfort. Just as she’s reaching into her purse for Jamie’s scented stress ball, however, Spock leans in to grab Lea’s hand, the tendons in her neck revealing how much she restrains herself from actually doing so. 

“Forgive me. My self-control has faltered, and you are suffering the effects.”

Lea grins, sympathetic tears stinging her own eyes. She closes the distance between their hands, enjoying how cool Spock’s skin is beneath her fingers. “Forget about me, darlin’! You—you told off a bunch of prejudiced bastards! That’s damn beautiful.”

Spock purses her lips, letting out a final, staggered breath, withdrawing her hand afterward. “Yes. After presuming that you were harboring romantic and/or sexual feelings for Cadet Kirk.”

Snorting, Lea forces herself not to shudder at the image it presents. “Well, I think I can forgive you thinking you know better than me when it comes to how I feel about Jamie if, you know, you can forgive me for what I said.”

“You are referring to your presumption of my ability to be ‘real Vulcan’ despite my heritage?”

Lea winces. “Sure am. So, we’re even?”

“It would seem so, yes.”

Another period of quiet lapses over the table as Spock methodically eats the rest of her food and Lea finishes her tea. “So, I remind you of your mama?” she asks when she sets the empty cup down, unable to resist a final prodding. “You know, that’s quite the red flag on Earth, but I get what you’re getting at and I’m flattered. Hope she doesn’t curse as much as I do at her morning alarm, though.”

Spock’s eyes are full of all of the humor the subtle twitch of her mouth only hints at. She swipes a card into the reader at the table, keying in a tip. “To be compared to one’s parents is the highest praise a potential mate can receive upon Vulcan.” 

“I’ll take it,” Lea replies, capping the sparkling water’s bottle and tapping her fingers on the glass, fully aware that she’s pushing the limits of shuttle timeliness by not running to catch the one that passes by. 

“You need to leave in 2.4 minutes if you are to catch the next shuttle to the medical complex,” Spock tells her. “However, I must request the last of your time.”

Lea’s lips purse in curiosity, parting into a smile when Spock removes a folded swath of fabric from her bag. The knit slides through Lea’s hands, the gradient shaded blue like the horizon —a perfect contrast to her red face and the color of the instructor’s skant she intends to burn before Pike can try to rope her into another lecture.

“You complained of being excessively cold on the evening we first spoke. There is a 77.3% chance of rain calculated for tomorrow and the temperature will reach a low of 51 degrees Fahrenheit—two degrees below the highest temperature recorded that day.” 

_Let me help._ Lea hears the unspoken words and smiles, risking a peck to Spock’s cheek after she’s wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. _Regulations can get throttled by it!_

“Well, this takes care of the chill. How about you try to keep me dry at your place tomorrow after my shift ends?” 

Spock’s smile remains for a fraction of a second longer this time, and Lea’s almost sure she caught the innuendo.

“That would, indeed, be a logical course of action.”


End file.
